Discovery

Discovery is where we figure out exactly what we're building, what we're cutting, and what it'll take to ship. It runs one to three weeks depending on the size of the project and happens before the monthly retainer billing starts — there's no separate discovery invoice.

The goal isn't a comprehensive spec. The goal is to know enough — about your business, your existing software, and the problem we're solving — that the team building it next isn't guessing.

What we do

Talk to your people

Not one introductory call. A series of working sessions with the operators, customers, and engineers who actually feel the problem. We want to hear from the person who will use the thing every day, not just the executive who signs the SOW.

For a 6-week build, expect 4–8 working sessions, each 45–60 minutes. We'll send the schedule before kickoff so your team can plan around it.

Audit what already exists

Whatever software, tools, or process you're running today gets a thorough read. We don't want to rebuild things that already work — and we don't want to bolt new code onto a foundation that's about to give out. The audit covers:

• The current system (code, infrastructure, data flows)
• Whatever third-party tools the new system has to integrate with
• The data we'd be migrating, if any
• The team's capacity to run what we hand back

Pin down the scope

We're aggressive about cutting scope here. Small launches that work always beat big launches that don't. By the end of discovery, the scope document distinguishes:

• What's in the build (we will ship this in this engagement)
• What's out (definitely not in this engagement)
• What's in version two (deliberately deferred — written down so it's not lost)

Sketch the architecture

A one-page picture of how the system fits together. The data model, the major services, the integrations, where state lives, how auth works, where the team has decisions to make. It's a living document during discovery and a frozen reference at the start of the build.

What we'll ask of you

Discovery only works if your team is reachable and the materials are gathered. Before kickoff we'll send a short list of:

• Existing docs, decks, design files, requirements (whatever you have — half-finished is fine)
• Read access to current tools and dashboards
• A sample of representative data
• Calendar availability for working sessions
• Names and emails of the people we'll need to talk to

If a key person is going to be unreachable for a stretch, tell us upfront. We'd rather plan around it than discover it on day six.

What you walk away with

By the end of discovery you have:

1. A signed Master Services Agreement and Statement of Work — the contractual frame for the engagement.
2. A defined scope — what's in, what's out, what's deferred to a future phase.
3. An architecture sketch — a one-pager you can show your team or board.
4. A build schedule — sprint cadence, what gets reviewed when, the rough timeline to launch.
5. A monthly retainer fee — the single number on your SOW that covers the build and everything that follows.

If at the end of discovery we don't think the project is the right fit for us — or for you — we'll say so. That's rare but it happens. Better to spend two weeks finding out than committing to a 12-month engagement that's wrong from the start.

How discovery is paid for

Discovery is part of the engagement. There's no separate discovery invoice — billing on the monthly retainer starts at launch (or five business days after the site is production-ready and awaiting your approval, whichever is earlier). See minimum term & cancellation for the exact billing trigger.

That means if you go through discovery and decide not to proceed before signing the SOW, you don't owe anything. The contract is what gates the engagement, not the discovery work.

Where to go next

How we structure the build phase → Pricing in detail →